Friday, December 16, 2011

Lessons Six, Seven, and Eight

I was reading the paper yesterday and I came across an article about Planned Parenthood's new text program marketed to teens in which you can send them a text asking a question about sex and within 24 hours you'll get a response with an answer.  The article said the answers would encourage teens to ask a health professional after giving a brief answer, and that Planned Parenthood was not trying to usurp this job from parents.  Not that most parents teach about sex in the first place...  The point is, at the very end was a statement from the president of Denver-based Personhood USA Keith Mason:
"We're aware of it...It's just another extension of their abortion-marketing plan.  Just like restaurants use texts to give out coupons, this is their way of driving young people to Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion chain in America. "
This kind of statement is irritating in the implications.  First, it implies that Personhood is against sex education; second, that Planned Parenthood - clearly - only offers abortion as a service.
First, why is sex education bad?  Knowledge is power, so the information should be available, and taught, so that people don't make stupid mistakes.  Yes, this should be done by parents, but it is not in the majority of cases.
Second, Planned Parenthood does a lot more than abortion, and not even every clinic offers it.  I'm not condoning anything here, but some of the services they offer are good.
These kind of statements hurt the Pro-Life movement more than they help in my eyes.  It gives the impression of emotional, rather than logical, debate.  Yes, abortion is wrong, but you shouldn't go around talking crazy about it.  Speaking of which; have you ever seen someone with a "Pro-Life" bumper sticker not driving with flippant disregard for life?  Because I've nearly been killed or injured several times by someone sporting a "Pro-Life" sticker driving like a complete mad-man.  Ironic, eh?
Note: I'm talking about the bumper stickers that just say "Pro-Life" on them.  There are plenty of drivers out there with Pro-Life stickers that don't drive like crazies, but their stickers usually say stuff about adoption as an alternative, or "abortion is wrong" or something of the sort.

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Lesson Six:
Actual Sin
A. Mortal Sin
B. Venial Sin
C. Capital Sins
74.  What are the chief sources of actual sin?  The chief sources of actual sin are:  pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth...
D. Occasions of Sin
Well, this lesson is rather straightforward.  It was helpful (as was this entire book, really) in understanding the basics.  Everyone has this impression of Catholicism that is - again - less than 100% accurate; a grievance with all of the rules and the guilt the Church lays on a person daily.  I'm not sure I can speak to this one directly, having not been raised Catholic, but I haven't found an occasion in which I have felt guilty without cause to feel so.
A coworker said to me that Catholicism "messes people up" in reference to the extreme guilt the Church imposes on your life.  He used guilt about sex as an example.  His argument was that people shouldn't feel guilty about having sex because sex is natural.  To some extent he's right: sex is natural and, naturally, sex produces children.  So, to use this argument and then turn around to advocate hormonal birth control is a little hypocritical.
At any rate, I haven't found the 'extreme guilt' he was referring to yet, and I will be surprised if I manage to find it among practicing Catholics.

Lesson Seven:
The Incarnation
This lesson focuses on exactly what the title says.  It reiterates the differences between a nature and a person.
Having gone through confirmation in the U.C.C. church, this lesson was a review more than a learning experience.

Lesson Eight:
The Redemption
This was more review.

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Huzzah!  Two hundred views!  Thank you all for reading!

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Question Five:
If a new medicine were developed that would cure arthritis but cause a fatal reaction in one percent of those who took it, would you want it to be released to the public?

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